Themes
The rankings, cut a different way
A genre is a fact about where music came from. A theme is an argument about what some of it has in common — and an argument is worth reading only if somebody could have made it badly and chose not to. So these are held to rules the rest of the site can check.
10 themes of 12 ·101 records · drawn from 48 rankings
Why there are only 12
Themes are the easiest thing on this site to make badly. Nothing stops anyone generating a thousand of them, which is exactly why a thousand of them are worth nothing. Four rules keep this shelf small enough to mean something, and the site does not build if one is broken.
It invents nothing
Every record on a theme is already in one of our genre rankings, where it was argued over and verified. A theme re-cuts what the site has vouched for; it is never a way in for a record that has not earned one.
It crosses at least 3 rankings
A list that sits inside one genre is that genre's ranking wearing a hat, and belongs on its page. A theme has to find something the rankings, on their own, cannot show you.
It says what it excludes
Every theme publishes the test a record had to pass — including what would have kept one out. A theme is openly subjective. Stating the standard is what lets you argue with it instead of guessing at it.
2 slots left
12 at once, and no more. The 13th theme fails the build, so publishing a new one means retiring an old one. A shelf with a page count is a shelf somebody had to choose.
11 records · 7 rankings
1976
Eleven records, six countries, one year. Lagos, Kingston, Casablanca, Lusaka, Istanbul and Accra all having a better 1976 than anywhere with a music press.
Gets in: Released in 1976, and it has to be the best evidence that its own scene was somewhere other than London or New York that year. A great 1976 record from a place already at the centre of things does not qualify.
AfrobeatAnadolu RockDubGnawaHighlife+2 more
12 records · 10 rankings
1994
Twelve records, ten of our rankings, one year. Jungle, trip-hop, Memphis, kwaito, dub techno and Britpop all arriving at once, none of them aware of the others.
Gets in: Released in 1994, and load-bearing: a scene has to date itself from this record. A great record that happened to come out that year and changed nothing after it does not qualify, however much we like it.
BritpopDrum and BassDub TechnoG-FunkGolden Age Hip-Hop+5 more
5 records · 4 rankings
Bass Weight
One line, five records, forty years: Kingston to Croydon by way of every British rave that treated the sub-bass as the point rather than the foundation.
Gets in: The sub-bass has to be the subject of the record, not its foundation. A track with an enormous low end that would survive being played on a small speaker does not belong here.
Drum and BassDubDubstepUK Garage
11 records · 11 rankings
Dancing to Bad News
Eleven records, eleven of our rankings, thirty years. Every one of them gets a room moving while telling it something it would rather not hear, and most of the rooms never noticed.
Gets in: The arrangement has to be one a room moves to, and the subject has to be something that went badly — a death, a raid, a country coming apart. A record that sounds as bleak as its subject does not qualify, and neither does a happy song with one dark line in it.
AfrobeatBaile FunkBritpopDrum and BassGolden Age Hip-Hop+6 more
11 records · 3 rankings
Miami
Eleven records, three of our rankings, thirty years. One drum machine tuned in a Florida car park, and what became of it in Rio and on the South Side of Chicago.
Gets in: Made in Miami, or built on the 808 pattern Miami tuned — and where it is the second, this site has to already publish the lineage that says so. Being upstream does not qualify: Planet Rock is the signal the city received, not a record the city made, and it is not here.
Baile FunkJuke and FootworkMiami Bass
5 records · 5 rankings
Roots
Five records from before the map starts. Everything else we publish is downstream of one of these, and most of it is downstream of several.
Gets in: A record only qualifies if something we publish is demonstrably downstream of it — a lineage arrow, a borrowed rhythm, a sampled bar. Being early is not enough, and neither is being great.
DiscoDubFunkKrautrockPost-Punk
12 records · 11 rankings
Sung to Someone
Twelve records, eleven of our rankings and thirty-eight years apart, all doing one thing: turning to a single person and saying it out loud.
Gets in: Every record here is one person addressing another, and is that address the whole way through. A song about love in general does not qualify, however great; nor does an instrumental; nor a record whose "you" turns out to be a city, a scene or a crowd.
Chicago HouseCity PopCountryHighlifeNorthern Soul+6 more
13 records · 10 rankings
The Eighties
Thirteen records, ten of our rankings, ten years. The decade cheap machines and cheap pressings reached people with no access to a record industry, told through the labels they had to start instead.
Gets in: Released between 1980 and 1989, and made outside the industry that was selling the decade — the label has to be the makers' own or their scene's. A great eighties record made on a major's budget does not qualify, however much the decade is remembered for it.
Bleep TechnoChicago HouseDancehallDetroit TechnoDream Pop+5 more
9 records · 9 rankings
Twice Over
Three artists, nine of our rankings. Everyone the corpus ranks in three different genres, and the records that got them in.
Gets in: The artist has to be ranked by us in at least three separate genres, and each record here has to be one of those rankings. An artist who merely dabbled elsewhere does not qualify — the other scene had to keep the record.
BalearicBleep TechnoElectroFunkJazz+4 more
12 records · 5 rankings
Warp
One label, five of our rankings, thirteen years. A shop in Sheffield that kept signing the thing that came next, and kept being right about it.
Gets in: The record has to be one our rankings already hold, and it has to have moved the label somewhere it had not been. A good Warp record that sounds like the last Warp record is exactly what this list is not for.
AmbientBalearicBleep TechnoIDMTrip-Hop